Toronto is a city that has gained much precedence in Canada as it is the hub of the nation's commercial, financial, industrial, and cultural life. The reason for its success is that Toronto is viewed as one of the safest urban communities in the world due to its high standard of living and reliable services. (City of Toronto T.F, 2009)The city is known for its diverse and cultural population that crosses the population of Canada’s four Atlantic Provinces combined. (City of Toronto T.F, 2009) And not to mention Toronto is Canada's economic engine, being the 6th largest government and one of the world's most powerful corporate powers. (City of Toronto T.F, 2009) However, amongst all these contributions and world-wide recognition for its accomplishments, Toronto is suffering from a local problem that is reaching out of hand and that is homelessness. Homelessness has become a very serious issue that is increasing even though Canada is booming and this can be seen on the streets of downtown as men and women lay on the floor with no shelter, food and family. The issue became prevalent in Canada’s history after major historical events such as the great depression and WW2, and is still a prominent issue today. (Brushett, 2007)And this is even reflected in the 2000 report card of on homelessness as it states that, “In Toronto, for instance, admissions to homeless shelters increase by 75% between 1988 and 1998” making homelessness a part of the political agenda. (City of Toronto, 2009) Additionally, according to the Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness 2003, “there are about 31,985 homeless individuals (including 4,779 children) that have stayed in a Toronto shelter at least once during 2002.” (City of Toronto, 2009) Thus it is clear that homelessness is a socio-political issue as it can be seen in the, “declaration by mayors of Canada's 10 largest cities that homelessness is a national disaster worthy of the type of response traditionally reserved for natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes” (Anucha, 2006) As a result in order to solve such a problem one must first look into the causes, stakeholders and the history of homelessness. Therefore, the major causes behind this issue are the lack of government responsibility, improper de-institutionalization of the mentally ill homeless individuals, and the fact that there is no proper evaluation or statistics on the amount of homeless people.
Lack of Government Policies
First and foremost, the main entity responsible for the homelessness situation in Toronto would be the government. It is due to their negligent behavior towards low-housing and low-income families that the situation has reached out of hand. The key issue is there is not enough adequate housing available for homeless individuals to live in and the governments are not doing a good job in providing better housing. Shortage in the amount of housing has been a consistent issue in the late 1940’s to early 1950’s, when it comes to Canadian cities especially Toronto. (Brushett, 2007) As in Toronto the first concrete step towards housing shortage was the creation of, “…of Regent Park, Canada’s “Premier Slum Clearance and Public Housing Project,” nearly 1,350 Toronto Families were housed in dilapidated old army barracks and staff houses.” (Brushett, 2007) The fact is that Toronto’s government faced many problems after WW2 as it was the focal point of much immigration, and the construction of houses to provide residence to these individuals was slow as there was less land. (Brushett, 2007) However even though these situations played a part in the current homelessness issues the most important reason behind the problem is the lack of government support. As it did not close down its petty shelters and actually start a fully funded social-housing program that would have helped those who were hard hit by the housing shortage. The same problem persists today as the federal andprovincial governments’ reliance in private solutions to Toronto’s housing crisisintensify rather than solved the problem. Furthermore, it’s true that most of the blame is placed on the federal and provincial governments for not acting; the cities and municipalities also contribute to the problem. The issue is that many of the “Suburban mayors” demanded that the housing projects be closed of their land as these projects occupied valuable land awaiting development and the fact that these residents added additional costs to the budget. (Brushett, 2007) Basically, Suburban residents and officials refused to be burdenedby Toronto’s poor and disadvantaged. As a result, it’s clear that the years of neglect from the governments part to provide better housing programs and support to its needy residents has become a big problem today, as the city now reaps the seeds of Canada’s late entry in fixing social housing.
Lack of Research Data
Secondly, another major issue that has caused homelessness to continue in neglect is the insufficient data and statistics on the number of homeless people. This is a very big problem when it comes to finding possible solutions or emergency responses to homelessness as there is very little accurate estimation of the street homeless population. (Eval, 2007) As a result cities like Toronto rely on information or indirect estimates from shelters on the homeless populations.(Eval, 2007) However these annual counts are poorly done and do not offer an accurate account of the help that is actually needed. There are two main reasons behind the not so accurate estimates of homeless individuals. Firstly, it is hard to define an exact definition of what constitutes to be homeless, thus researchers are not specific in their research rather very general. (Eval, 2007) Secondly, the biggest problem is that the homeless are a “hidden” population, which means they are hard to count as members are difficult to get in touch with, and it is often difficult to determine if an individual is homeless.(Eval, 2007) As a result counts from shelter use or other administrative records have often been criticized for missing homeless people, who avoid those settings. (Eval, 2007) It is clear then that many homeless individuals are missed when collecting data, thus yielding wrong results which are used for building emergency programs. Therefore, data collection is a core problem to be blamed for impaired social efforts to help homeless individuals. Moreover, any research on homelessness has caused some tensions over funding, the use of the data and political interference. This is visible in the concern over the “attempted street counts in Toronto in 2000 and 2006”. (Eval, 2007) As it raised considerable opposition from homeless-service providers fearing that the data would be used to target the homeless. On the other hand, many non governmental organizations inflate numbers to secure their financial support and funding agencies deflate numbers to protect their money. (Eval, 2007) Thus, it’s quite obvious that the discrepancy in the data available for homeless individuals is manipulated, and is not a true representation of the current situation which leads to building of response programs that are inadequate.
Lack of Information
Last but not least, the reason homelessness continues to reappear year after year and stronger than before is because these individuals never deinstitutionalize properly into the community. One of the major causes behind the increase in homeless individuals in the 1990’s in Toronto was due to the strong belief in the 1970’s deinstitutionalization movement. (Ranasinghe & Valverde, 2006) The government decided to remove large number of mentally disturbed persons from institutions such as hospitals and prisons to the community under care. (Ranasinghe & Valverde, 2006) This was great for the government at the time as institutions were closed down and money was saved, but the government never paid intention to the fact if these individuals integrated into society. Moreover, the fact of the matter is that these individuals have a hard time connecting to society as they not only face economic issues but, “…vulnerabilities such as physical or mental health disabilities and/or drug or alcohol use,...” (Anucha, 2006)Thus it is precisely these characteristics that cause community housing workers to consider them "hard to house." (Anucha, 2006)The mental part of homelessness is usually given very little attention, which is exactly the reason behind homeless individual’s reluctance to change. Moreover, in a study conducted by pathways to homelessness of Toronto shelter users stated that, “…about two-thirds of shelter users and people on the street have a lifetime diagnosis of mental illness which means that they have been diagnosed as having mental illness at some time in their lives…”(Anucha, 2006) This is exactly where the problem arises as this kind of information is not given importance by the government so little is known behind the long-term effects of mental diseases and homelessness. Thus, the mental conditions of homeless individuals have to be understood better and treated before these individuals can be allowed to live a peaceful life in their communities.
Thus it can be stated that homelessness is a major problem that affects the economy, society and the living standard of Toronto. Homelessness is the result of poor housing conditions, low-income, discrepancy in research data, and mental illness and health issues. Also homelessness is not a recent phenomenon; it has been present ever since the great depression and WW2 and has only increased under the neglect of the government. Furthermore, there is little data available on the numbers of this hidden population because these individuals are all over the streets and are hard to keep track off. Thus, without any clear information on what makes a homeless person and their mental illness, they cannot be integrated successfully into society. Therefore, Toronto being a city that is booming should truly find a solution to this problem as it will only increase as time passes and linger on.
Works Cited Ranasinghe, P, & Valverde, M. (2009). Governing homelessness through land-use: a sociolegal study of the Toronto shelter zoning by-law. Canadian Journal of Sociology 31.3. Retrieved February 4, 2009 from Scholars Portal Database. <http://find.galegroup.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/itx/start.do?prodId=EAIM>.
Eval, B. (2007). A Repeated Observation Approach for Estimating the Street Homeless
Population. Canadian Journal of Sociology 31: 166-199. Retrieved February 4,
2009 from Scholars Portal Database.
< http://erx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/2/166>
HOMELESSNESS IN TORONTO
Toronto is a city that has gained much precedence in Canada as it is the hub of the nation's commercial, financial, industrial, and cultural life. The reason for its success is that Toronto is viewed as one of the safest urban communities in the world due to its high standard of living and reliable services. (City of Toronto T.F, 2009)The city is known for its diverse and cultural population that crosses the population of Canada’s four Atlantic Provinces combined. (City of Toronto T.F, 2009) And not to mention Toronto is Canada's economic engine, being the 6th largest government and one of the world's most powerful corporate powers. (City of Toronto T.F, 2009) However, amongst all these contributions and world-wide recognition for its accomplishments, Toronto is suffering from a local problem that is reaching out of hand and that is homelessness. Homelessness has become a very serious issue that is increasing even though Canada is booming and this can be seen on the streets of downtown as men and women lay on the floor with no shelter, food and family. The issue became prevalent in Canada’s history after major historical events such as the great depression and WW2, and is still a prominent issue today. (Brushett, 2007)And this is even reflected in the 2000 report card of on homelessness as it states that, “In Toronto, for instance, admissions to homeless shelters increase by 75% between 1988 and 1998” making homelessness a part of the political agenda. (City of Toronto, 2009) Additionally, according to the Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness 2003, “there are about 31,985 homeless individuals (including 4,779 children) that have stayed in a Toronto shelter at least once during 2002.” (City of Toronto, 2009) Thus it is clear that homelessness is a socio-political issue as it can be seen in the, “declaration by mayors of Canada's 10 largest cities that homelessness is a national disaster worthy of the type of response traditionally reserved for natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes” (Anucha, 2006) As a result in order to solve such a problem one must first look into the causes, stakeholders and the history of homelessness. Therefore, the major causes behind this issue are the lack of government responsibility, improper de-institutionalization of the mentally ill homeless individuals, and the fact that there is no proper evaluation or statistics on the amount of homeless people.
Lack of Government Policies
First and foremost, the main entity responsible for the homelessness situation in Toronto would be the government. It is due to their negligent behavior towards low-housing and low-income families that the situation has reached out of hand. The key issue is there is not enough adequate housing available for homeless individuals to live in and the governments are not doing a good job in providing better housing. Shortage in the amount of housing has been a consistent issue in the late 1940’s to early 1950’s, when it comes to Canadian cities especially Toronto. (Brushett, 2007) As in Toronto the first concrete step towards housing shortage was the creation of, “…of Regent Park, Canada’s “Premier Slum Clearance and Public Housing Project,” nearly 1,350 Toronto Families were housed in dilapidated old army barracks and staff houses.” (Brushett, 2007) The fact is that Toronto’s government faced many problems after WW2 as it was the focal point of much immigration, and the construction of houses to provide residence to these individuals was slow as there was less land. (Brushett, 2007) However even though these situations played a part in the current homelessness issues the most important reason behind the problem is the lack of government support. As it did not close down its petty shelters and actually start a fully funded social-housing program that would have helped those who were hard hit by the housing shortage. The same problem persists today as the federal and provincial governments’ reliance in private solutions to Toronto’s housing crisis intensify rather than solved the problem. Furthermore, it’s true that most of the blame is placed on the federal and provincial governments for not acting; the cities and municipalities also contribute to the problem. The issue is that many of the “Suburban mayors” demanded that the housing projects be closed of their land as these projects occupied valuable land awaiting development and the fact that these residents added additional costs to the budget. (Brushett, 2007) Basically, Suburban residents and officials refused to be burdened by Toronto’s poor and disadvantaged. As a result, it’s clear that the years of neglect from the governments part to provide better housing programs and support to its needy residents has become a big problem today, as the city now reaps the seeds of Canada’s late entry in fixing social housing.
Lack of Research Data
Secondly, another major issue that has caused homelessness to continue in neglect is the insufficient data and statistics on the number of homeless people. This is a very big problem when it comes to finding possible solutions or emergency responses to homelessness as there is very little accurate estimation of the street homeless population. (Eval, 2007) As a result cities like Toronto rely on information or indirect estimates from shelters on the homeless populations.(Eval, 2007) However these annual counts are poorly done and do not offer an accurate account of the help that is actually needed. There are two main reasons behind the not so accurate estimates of homeless individuals. Firstly, it is hard to define an exact definition of what constitutes to be homeless, thus researchers are not specific in their research rather very general. (Eval, 2007) Secondly, the biggest problem is that the homeless are a “hidden” population, which means they are hard to count as members are difficult to get in touch with, and it is often difficult to determine if an individual is homeless.(Eval, 2007) As a result counts from shelter use or other administrative records have often been criticized for missing homeless people, who avoid those settings. (Eval, 2007) It is clear then that many homeless individuals are missed when collecting data, thus yielding wrong results which are used for building emergency programs. Therefore, data collection is a core problem to be blamed for impaired social efforts to help homeless individuals. Moreover, any research on homelessness has caused some tensions over funding, the use of the data and political interference. This is visible in the concern over the “attempted street counts in Toronto in 2000 and 2006”. (Eval, 2007) As it raised considerable opposition from homeless-service providers fearing that the data would be used to target the homeless. On the other hand, many non governmental organizations inflate numbers to secure their financial support and funding agencies deflate numbers to protect their money. (Eval, 2007) Thus, it’s quite obvious that the discrepancy in the data available for homeless individuals is manipulated, and is not a true representation of the current situation which leads to building of response programs that are inadequate.
Lack of Information
Last but not least, the reason homelessness continues to reappear year after year and stronger than before is because these individuals never deinstitutionalize properly into the community. One of the major causes behind the increase in homeless individuals in the 1990’s in Toronto was due to the strong belief in the 1970’s deinstitutionalization movement. (Ranasinghe & Valverde, 2006) The government decided to remove large number of mentally disturbed persons from institutions such as hospitals and prisons to the community under care. (Ranasinghe & Valverde, 2006) This was great for the government at the time as institutions were closed down and money was saved, but the government never paid intention to the fact if these individuals integrated into society. Moreover, the fact of the matter is that these individuals have a hard time connecting to society as they not only face economic issues but, “…vulnerabilities such as physical or mental health disabilities and/or drug or alcohol use,...” (Anucha, 2006)Thus it is precisely these characteristics that cause community housing workers to consider them "hard to house." (Anucha, 2006)The mental part of homelessness is usually given very little attention, which is exactly the reason behind homeless individual’s reluctance to change. Moreover, in a study conducted by pathways to homelessness of Toronto shelter users stated that, “…about two-thirds of shelter users and people on the street have a lifetime diagnosis of mental illness which means that they have been diagnosed as having mental illness at some time in their lives…”(Anucha, 2006) This is exactly where the problem arises as this kind of information is not given importance by the government so little is known behind the long-term effects of mental diseases and homelessness. Thus, the mental conditions of homeless individuals have to be understood better and treated before these individuals can be allowed to live a peaceful life in their communities.
Thus it can be stated that homelessness is a major problem that affects the economy, society and the living standard of Toronto. Homelessness is the result of poor housing conditions, low-income, discrepancy in research data, and mental illness and health issues. Also homelessness is not a recent phenomenon; it has been present ever since the great depression and WW2 and has only increased under the neglect of the government. Furthermore, there is little data available on the numbers of this hidden population because these individuals are all over the streets and are hard to keep track off. Thus, without any clear information on what makes a homeless person and their mental illness, they cannot be integrated successfully into society. Therefore, Toronto being a city that is booming should truly find a solution to this problem as it will only increase as time passes and linger on.
Works Cited
Ranasinghe, P, & Valverde, M. (2009). Governing homelessness through land-use:
a sociolegal study of the Toronto shelter zoning by-law. Canadian Journal of Sociology 31.3. Retrieved February 4, 2009 from Scholars Portal Database.
<http://find.galegroup.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/itx/start.do?prodId=EAIM>.
Eval, B. (2007). A Repeated Observation Approach for Estimating the Street Homeless
Population. Canadian Journal of Sociology 31: 166-199. Retrieved February 4,
2009 from Scholars Portal Database.
< http://erx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/2/166>
Brushett, K. (2007). Where will the People Go: Toronto's Emergency Housing Program
and the Limits of Canadian Social Housing Policy, 1944-1957. Journal of Urban History; 33; 375. Retrieved from Scholars Portal Database.
<http://juh.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/3/375>
Anucha, U. (2006). When A Bed Is Home: The Challenges and Paradoxes of Community
Development in a Shared-Housing Program for Homeless People.
Canadian Review of Social Policy, Iss. 58; pg. 62, 22 pgs. Retrieved February 5, 2009 from Scholars Portal Database.
<http://proquest.umi.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=02-03-2014&FMT=7&DID=1333210521&RQT=309>
City of Toronto T.F. (2009). Toronto Facts. Living in Toronto. Retrieved February 5, 2009
from, http://www.toronto.ca/toronto_facts/index.htm
City of Toronto. (2009). Housing and Homelessness Report Card. Accessing City Hall. Retrieved February 5, 2009 from, http://www.toronto.ca/homelessness/index.htm
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